


Gained in translation

by ClueingforBEGGs



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2019-11-05 12:01:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17918423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClueingforBEGGs/pseuds/ClueingforBEGGs
Summary: Almost 3 million years ago there was a computer terminal that had been signed in before the radiation leak. Across the keyboard walked a cat. The message typed out has spent the last 3 million years bouncing about the universe being badly translated.





	1. New message

Dave Lister sat on the bed strumming his guitar. He claimed to be playing a piece of classical music called Bicycle Race, but it was so unrecognisable that he might have been strangling Cat, for all anyone knew.

Which was probably why he was alone. Except for Cat, who was strangling himself, probably in protest.

Beep.

Lister didn't take any notice of the computer terminal. Cat did, however, stopping strangling himself and heading over to see if it was anything important.

On the terminal there was a flashing message, which Cat assumed must be the new one. He squinted at it, the black blobs on the pulsing yellow-green background made no sense to him. So he did the only thing he thought was sensible. Something that would surely help Lister. Yes, Lister would definitely thank him for what he was about to do.

He curled up into a ball and fell asleep.

Beep.

Lister thought he heard a beep and paused his playing.

Beep.

Lister looked at the computer terminal. _what could that be?_ He thought. Surely it was nothing important, probably Kryten complaining about washing or Rimmer complaining about a can of beer left somewhere. He sighed, put the guitar down and, stepping over Cat's sleeping form, walked over to the terminal.

Unlike Cat, he could understand the black blobs on the pulsing yellow-green background. They were words. Words that made sense to him, for they were written in English. 

But simultaneously words that didn't make sense to him.

He walked over to the fridge, grabbed a beer, drank half of it and then returned to the terminal, hoping that he'd see something different, something that made sense in the English Language.

It hadn't changed. The terminal still read:

Sent: 5th January, 2178

AJR - dave lister: Will you marry me?

Received: 25th April, UNKNOWN

Lister dropped the beer, creating a sticky, wet puddle. He then decided that he needed to sit down to think about this, transferring the sticky wet puddle to his trouser bottoms, which is when he realised he'd dropped the beer.

'Kryten!' he yelled. 'Kryten! I've dropped my beer!'

Cat rolled over and hit the back of Lister's ankle. 'Mrh hu mrmuh' he mumbled unintelligibly. 

Lister stood there frozen in place for a couple of seconds, before remembering to switch over to a call programme, as Kryten was in the B deck airlock. 

* * *

'Well sir' said Kryten, glancing between the beer puddle on the floor and the wet stain on Listers behind. 'How, may I ask, did this happen?'

Lister gestured about the room'Well... I was surprised by something. And... I dropped it.'

Kryten sighed and added 'wash Lister's trousers' to his to-do list. 'Nevermind sir, I can clean this up in no time!' he grinned slightly awkwardly. 'Now, if you wouldn't mind taking your pants off, I-'  
Lister shook his head. 'No, that will be fine, Krytes.' He stepped aside and leant against the wall, watching Kryten clean.

'Hey, can I ask you for some advice?'

Kryten hesitated. 'What on?'

There was a short almost-silence as Lister played with his hair, wrapping it around his finger, making a slight 'uhh' sound. Finally, he coughed, looked at some invisible thing on the ground and said 'Say someone had sent you a marriage proposal, you haven't been on a date, you didn't even know they liked you and...' he trailed off. 'Well, what would you do?'

'Well sir, that would depend on who it was. If it was Cat, I would kindly suggest that you take into consideration the anatomy of his penis, the ba-'

'Kryten!'

'Was it not Cat?'

'No! It wasn't Cat!'

'Well then,' said Kryten, 'I should think that you should go on a date first, see how it goes.'

Somewhere in Kryten's CPU an address register suddenly had a thought and started a fetch-decode-execute cycle. It strolled through his secondary storage until it found everything it wanted, then returned to the CPU, leaving Kryten staring in shock, then annoyance at Lister.

'Are you alright there?'

'But sir, if it wasn't Cat, and it wasn't me, and Holly's still offline... That would mean...' Kryten trailed off. 'Well, I can't say I'm surprised, I suspected as much.' 

And with that he finished cleaning up and left.

'Wait!' called Lister. 'What do you mean you suspected as much?'


	2. Even more messages

Three million years ago there was a computer terminal. This was a computer terminal like no other on the ship, as it was the only one signed in.

It had been signed in by one particular man to send a message reading 'Will you please not get yourself put into stasis again? It is annoying and doesn't help me do my job.'

The sender had only managed to put in the name of the recipient and the word 'Will' before the drive plate exploded, killing everyone but a pregnant cat, who gave birth to kittens, who grew up and who occasionally left the hold in search of... well, anything really.

This, of course, is not important.

What is important is that after a few months the message read 'Will Jie qwop xfgilqaf?'

And that the next key pressed was the mouse button, positioned over 'Send and translate'

And so for 3 million years, a message travelled through the ether. It was translated into countless languages, becoming slightly less accurate all the time.

In the end, this was translated back to English, somehow making a sentence.

A question. A proposal, if you will.

The message, received 3 million years later, picked up by the same ship, now read 'Will you marry me?'

This shocked the recipient, but you already know that.

What you don't know yet is that it shocked the sender too. 

* * *

Rimmer wasn't entirely sure what the wall panel was for, just that it was broken and needed fixing. And as Lister was busy playing 'music' he had decided to fix it with the help of Stab 'em. 

'Hold this. Stay still.' he passed a wire to Stab 'em, who immediately decided to move off down the corridor as fast as skutters can, causing more damage to the panel. He sighed. 'What part of stay still can't you understand.' He snatched the wire from the skutter and shoved it back into wherever it was that it may have hopefully come from. 

Beep.

He glared at the terminal, annoyed.

Beep. Beep.

'Gah!' he stormed over to the terminal, still very annoyed. It was probably Lister, having failed to annoy him face-to-face he was probably trying to get to him over the internal messenger. What he found was slightly odd. First of all, the last sent message read:

Sent: 5th January, 2178

AJR - dave lister: Will Jie qwop xfgilqaf?

Received: 25th April, UNKNOWN

And this nonsense had got a reply. And not a 'What are you on?' or a 'Have you glitched.' with a 'Did the terminal glitch too?' or even a 'What are you talking about?' No. Instead, it read:

Sent: 25th April, UNKNOWN

dave lister - AJR: r u 3 2nite?

dave lister - AJR: Are you free tonight sorry. 

dave lister - AJR: meet me in parrots bar for dinner 7 pm. <3

Received: 25th April, UNKNOWN

It was the heart that seemed strange to him. Well, asides from Lister not typing like a prepubescent girl from the early 21st century. Why would Lister send him a heart? 

_Sure, I can do 7, if I finish fixing this wall panel by then._

He waited for the reply to come in.

 _cool |3_ it read.  _thts a thumbs up_ joined it a few seconds later, followed by another heart.

Rimmer eyed the terminal up. Something fishy was going on here and he didn't understand it. He opened a call to Kryten. 

'Can you come down here for a second, Kryten.'

'Of course sir' Kryten said 'I just have to finish washing Mr Lister's pants, and then I'll be with you'

He ended the call and then got back to fixing the panel. He had just figured out what to do with the wires and was using a spanner to do up a bolt keeping everything in place when Kryten arrived.

'Ah, sir, I believe this is about Mr Lister?'

'Yes, Kryten. It is, what tipped you off? I was wondering if he was still sane, he hasn't been driven space crazy has he?'

'No sir.'

'Well then, about what he's just sent me-'

'Oh, he means no offence sir, he'd just like to have dinner with you before, well. You know sir.' Kryten gestured vaguely. 

Rimmer didn't know, and frankly, he was rather confused. 'Of course... That makes sense, especially given what I know.'

Kryten nodded, and then stood there awkwardly for a second. He then stood there awkwardly for several seconds, until the uncomfortable awkward silent seconds grew into an uncomfortable awkward silent minutes. He had been on his way to find Rimmer before he asked to see him. He meant to engage his embarresment protocol and beg for forgiveness for not noticing what in hindsight were quite obvious signs that Rimmer preffered men to women. 

Afer a couple more uncomfortable awkward silent seconds he did so.

'Oh sir, I cant believe I didn't notice earlier, the signs were all there! I feel like I've failed you!'

The mechanoid broke down into a hysterical blubbering mess, telling the now very confused hologram everything, somehow without using the words 'Gay' or 'Homosexual', causing Rimmer to get more and more confused as Kryten's monologue went on. And on.

And

On

And then he suddenly stopped, noticing the confusion written plain as day on Rimmer's face. And then he thought. 

He thought _Oh dear, what if I got it wrong again!_

He hadn't stopped to consider bisexuality. Or pansexuality. Polysexuality and omnisexuality had also been thrown out the metaphorical window, only to climb through the same window back into Krytens RAM to his horror at being so useless at knowing peoples sexuality.

Kryten froze.

Then he crashed.

The very last thing he saw before he did so was Rimmer looking really incredibly totally confused. Then an error report.

ERROR: Out of RAM  
ERROR: Out of Virtual Memory  
CAUSE: Probably a panic attack. Restarting


	3. A date with confusion

Lister was nervous. He sat alone at a dinner table in Parrots with a single candle, unlit, in front of him. Kryten, back online after he crashed earlier, stood behind the bar, giving Lister a thumbs up. It was not reassuring, he'd been stood there, in that exact pose, for half an hour. Lister was nervous. And there were still 5 minutes until his date began.

Why? well, Lister hadn't dated in years, not since Kochanski-from-the-other-universe had returned to her Dave. He'd never imagined he'd be dating Rimmer, in fact, although he wasn't entirely sure about Ionian politics, he thought he remembered enough to know that Rimmer effectively coming out to him via a proposal was not normally something that you would expect for someone who spent their formative years on the highly radioactive moon. Thirdly, Kryten had now been holding his thumb up for 33 minutes.

2 minutes left.

He was dressed up to impress, sort of. He doubted anyone would be impressed by what he was wearing, not even Kryten, despite him saying that he thought Lister looked smart, just before he walked behind the bar, grinned and gave him a thumbs up. Or started to give him one. It was still going on.

Rimmer walked in and saw Lister wearing his least-curry-stained t-shirt, which was unimpressive, a tie (which hung loosely around his neck), which was an attempt and a bow tie. The effect was similar to someone trying to wear as many items of clothing as possible in an online dress up game.

The table in front of him had a clean table cloth and a candle. There were two chairs, one of which Lister sat on.

'Hi.'

'Hello.'

Rimmer sat down opposite him. 'Why's Kryten holding his thumb up like that?'

Lister shrugged in response. Kryten lowered his thumb in response, busying himself with preparing drinks and dinner.

There was an awkward silence. Recently, that had happened a lot.

'So,' Lister broke it eventually. 'I hope you don't take offence.'

'Offense! Nonsense, miladdo! In fact, I'm rather grateful that you took time out of your slobbiness to treat me to dinner! Even if Kryten is cooking it.'

Rimmer was confused. And Lister wasn't making him any less confused, but as his superior officer, he knew he must try and look unconfused. Unbeknown to him, Lister was also confused. Normally if you reject a proposal, the person you rejected takes offence at it.

'Really? That's good... I think. I hope...' Lister chewed his hair thoughtfully, and then through a mouthful of hair he said 'I-'

'How do you like your steak sirs?'

Both men jumped at Kryten's question.

'However you want.'

'Steak?'

'Oh yes sir!' said Kryten, beaming. 'Steak is, according to a quick search on the JMC onboard computer, one of the most romantic items of food out there!' He put an arm around both Lister and Rimmer. 'Perfect for your first date!'

Rimmer's confusion soon became incredulity, then realisation. It then went into shock, before settling on horror. It only stayed on horror for a short amount of time, before escalating further into abject horrifying fearful terrifying alarm.

Date?

'Uh...'

Lister leant over. 'Look, sorry man, but we've never been on a date, so I wasn't gonna just say yes to your proposal.

'M-uh...'

Rimmer didn't need to have a test to tell him that his T-count was getting dangerously high. He could feel the... whatever it was, probably tachyons, buzzing around and through him as a strange throbbing.

The colour drained from him. Literally. Kryten and Lister jumped back in shock, staring at the now greyscale hologram in front of them.

'Are you OK sir?'

'Rimmer?'

Rimmer stood up. 'I need. I need...' and with that, he turned and ran out. Which, in fact, was what he was going to say.

* * *

He didn't stop running until the colour had returned to him and he felt better. Due to some strange coincidence, this happened to be outside a bathroom that still smelt of floodwater, almost 12 years after it had flooded. As such, this was of course also outside of a computer room, which also smelt of floodwater, 12 years after it too had been flooded. 

This gave Rimmer an idea. He needed advice, and he wasn't going to admit to Kryten that he needed advice. Though they had told the skutters to dry out Holly, they never learnt whether it had been successful or not. Not surprising, as some of the events between then and now had included finding his brother, meeting Jesus (of Caesarea), seeing Jesus (Christ), and whatnot. 

So he entered the computer room. 

And he sat down.

And he started to fix Holly. 

All in all, it took 5 hours of poking and prodding wires into position, of twisting and turning Holly's innards this way and that. But, finally, the moment of truth had come. 

He pressed the power button and silently prayed to as many deities as he could remember the names of, even the ones he never believed in.

Gradually a face faded into the screen. It was upside down and for the most part, it was male. The hair, however, was shoulder length and blonde, something that would have fitter much more naturally on Holly's female form. It didn't seem to bother him, nothing ever really bothered Holly. For a computer with an IQ of supposedly 6000, he never seemed to notice or care about anything.

'S'down, dude!' said the computer in a London accent, 

'I need your advice.'

'Ah,' said Holly, giving him an upside-down grin. 'I advise you to turn my mainframe the right way up.'

'Holly.'

'Oh!' said Holly, a look of shock spreading across his features. 'My bad, I advise you to stop standing on the ceiling. If its the gravity plating I can advise you how to-'

'No.'

Holly looked confused. 

'It seems that I may have accidentally sent someone a marriage proposal.'

'Dude, why!'

'What part of "Accidentally" do you not understand.'

'Fair enough. You sent it on accident.' Holly nodded thoughtfully. Then he looked disgusted. 'Oh, ew, you know Felis Sapiens have barbs on their penises, right.'

'I'm aware... What!'

'It's that thing between your legs. Most men have one... You do have a penis, don't you?

Rimmer sighed. 'Yes, I do. Happy?'

'Not really' said Holly, flatly. 'Everythings still upside down.'

Rimmer sighed. 'Well, whatever. Why did you assume I'd sent it to Cat?'

'Well, you meant to send it to Lister, right. I mean, I know how you look at him. You don't need an IQ of 6000 to tell that you're in Lo-ove!'

Rimmer was flabbergasted.

'It helps though.' Added Holly. 'Also, reading your disk helped a bit.'

RImmer glared at the computer. 'Me? No, there's no way... I like women!'

'Do you?' said Holly. 'Or have you just convinced yourself you like them. 'Cause that's what it looks like to me.' Holly winked. 'And you know what they say, "Genderfluid computer knows best." '

Rimmer kicked the upside down mainframe. Not only did nobody say that, but he was pretty certain that Holly was wrong.

'Now that wasn't nice was it.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the reason why Holly says 'Dude why' is because I was talking to a friend who's not in the fandom about the rough sort of idea for the fanfic and she said that after the whole advice thing the 'other guy' should say 'Dude why' and unknowingly that was very Holly-esque, so thanks to @guesswhofinallydecidedtoshowup


	4. Back online

There was an empty beer can on the floor, surrounded by its eleven sibling beer cans, all empty, all half squashed. Had they been sentient, they would have a lot to complain about. But they weren't. Behind them, assuming you entered from the corridor, and not the bathroom, and had not moved in the shock of seeing a dozen beer cans on the floor, was a set of crewmember bunks.

Laying face down, snoring and smelling strongly of beer on the lower bunk, was a man. And this was not his bunk. His bunk was currently occupied by a member of a species evolved from the common housecat, who had thrown the blankets, and eventually the whole bedding, off the bunk, and was now curled up on the cold hard metal, trying to sleep.

Lister, for that was the name of the man on the lower bunk, was too drunk and upset to care. He had started to drink in the hopes of feeling better, but all he ended up doing was feeling sadder and sadder.

The ship made a faint nnnnnnnnnngg noise. It always made a faint nnnnnnnnnngg noise. But Lister rarely noticed it. He hadn't noticed the way the ship sounded since that day 12 years ago, where he realised the Hmmmffffng noise that the ship made with Holly had changed to the nnnnnnnnnngg noise that it made when he was offline. The raw sound of space. Well, aside from silence.

Nnnnnnnnnngg went the ship. Nnnnnnnnnngg again. Lister heard it as 'Nothing' as in 'I have NOTHING to show from my first date with the man who proposed to me because he turned greyscale and ran off'.

Hmmmffffng.

The new old sound cut through Lister's misery.

'Cat. Cat did you hear that?'

'Course I did bud, I hear everything... What in particular?'

'Hmmmffffng.'

'Nothing? Nah, I didn't hear nothing! I heard... Hmmm... Followed by... Ffffng.'

And then Lister sat upright. And he then regretted it.

'Holly?'

A face appeared upside down on the screen. This face was of a middle-aged man and had been chosen by Holly from a database of 20th-21st-century actors. Some hair also appeared, standing downright and falling towards the bottom of the screen. This had also been chosen by Holly, from a database of 20th-21st-century actresses. Lister had seen this hair on Holly before, and he had seen this face before too, but never in this combination.

'Holly!'

'S'down dudes! No, wait, I already used that.'

'What are you doing online, Hol?'

'Arnold turned me on. What, you thought I was dead? Was that it? I'm not dead, Dave.'

'Why are you upside down?'

'Well, Arnold wanted some advice, he sent Cat a marriage proposal by accident.'

'Me? Why would alphabet head think he's got a chance with me? I'm way outta his league!'

Lister ignored Cat. He also ignored Holly. And then he stopped ignoring Holly. 'Wh-'

'Don't worry, he sent you one too. That's who he meant to send it to. I always knew you two had a thing for each other, but whilst I've been offline, you've really come a long was in your relationship, and yes, before you ask, I will be your best computer... And that's for life, not just the wedding. Boy, do I have many hours of footage I can show! Mostly been sent out in SOS dis-'

Lister waved a hand in front of Holly's screen. 'How come you're upside down?'

'Oh. My mainframe is grav based.'

Cat walked over and stood between Lister and Holly. 'What is that?'

'A mainframe is a frame, that's main.'

'No, the other thing.'

'Grav based is something based in gravity.'

'Holly!' interrupted Lister. 'Just tell me what to do to fix you.'

'Well, come down to the computer room and turn my mainframe the right way up.'

* * *

 

Lister strained to pick up the mainframe. 

'That's it. That's it. A bit higher, are you even lifting me?'

'Nnnnnn' replied Lister, his face turning purple as he strained to lift the large, heavy mainframe. Honestly, whoever had decided that quantum computers should look and weigh anything like what they did was really annoying Lister, even though the said person would be dead by now.

'Oooooh' added Lister, giving up on lifting Holly. 'You're too heavy. You're like something from the 1980s, man.'

'Well that can be fixed.' said Holly, turning off the gravity.

Somewhere on the other side of the ship Kryten took a double take as everything went weightless. He dropped an iron which floated aimlessly about. He scrambled to grab Lister's underpants (the really old tatty ones he claimed were lucky) which had suddenly floated disgustingly in front of his eyes. In the bunkroom Cat scrambled about, floating in mid-air like a... well, like a man suddenly finding himself floating in zero gravity. He flipped upside down, he somersaulted wildly. He yowled, his hair standing up on end, for more than one reason. And in the bathroom opposite Holly's computer room Rimmer watched as everything except for him started floating wildly, thanks to his lightbee managing to stabilise itself. He went from being bemused to confuddled.

In the computer room Holly floated up past Lister's eyes, and Lister grabbed him in fear. He screamed nonsensical words at Holly's image. Somehow he managed to get Holly the right way up, and himself on the ground. 

'Now turn the smegging gravity on!' he yelled.

'Can't. Well, I can, but I can't. Gravity isn't like a switch, you see. It's a button. And the "Gravity on" button isn't working.'

'You're a real idiot, you know?'

'What did you expect from an IQ of 6000? Intelligence?'

Lister facepalmed, which sent him spinning heels over head backwards through the computer room. Once he'd righted himself again he glared at the computer. 'Yes, sort of. That's what an IQ is about. Intelligence Quotient. The word is right there in the name.'

Of course, had this been 3 million years ago, Holly would have had his advertised IQ of 6000. 'Holly 6000, recommended use for mining ships.' read his user manual. 'High IQ makes performing mining tasks in space easier.' And he had. To begin with. 

His user manual also said something about compressing memory, yet when he'd suggested this to the crew they had literally forbidden him from doing that, as it would drastically decrease his runtime. Then they'd complained to Kryten about... Holly wasn't sure what, something about white holes and losing memory. Or black holes and Lister dying. Holly knew they were two very different things, but his memory was really, really bad.

Had this been 3 million years ago, or had he compressed his memory, Holly knew he would have fixed the gravity on button. He would have also complained about why there was separate gravity on and gravity off buttons when a simple switch would have sufficed. But no. 

Holly watched everything float around in the total lack of gravity and decided that the best course of action was to try and generate centrifugapetal force. Or centripetafugal force, if that failed.

There was no such thing as centrifugapetal force. Or centripetafugal force. But Holly knew how to generate it.

And so he began to turn the ship around. Slowly. Very slowly.

Everything, and everyone, free-floating suddenly slammed against the left of the ship Kryten gave up on trying to grab hold of the laundry, and instead watched it plaster itself against the wall in despair, seconds before he joined it. Cat had managed to grab hold of a mirror and had forgotten completely about the lack of gravity, only to find himself torn away from his face as the mirror went one way and he went a slightly different way. Rimmer was infuriated as gravity suddenly pulled his lightbee out of his projection, light spiralling towards him as it struggled to continue to project him for a few seconds before he too was pulled by the gravity. He was even more infuriated when the bathroom sink tore itself from the wall and crashed through him. It was at this point that he made a Very Important Realisation, which had nothing to do with gravity.

And in the computer room, Lister slammed against the wall, along with the mainframe. This made Holly panic, so he stopped turning the ship. Everything was floating again, and everyone except for Kryten was simultaneously thinking 'What the smeg?'. 

Kryten was thinking 'How might I get to wherever it is that the gravity is turned on and off from?'

That was after he thought 'What the smeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...'


	5. Zero Gay-vity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter includes sex. If you do not like that, then do not read further than the divider line thing. Feel free to read the next chapter though. 
> 
> Also I've changed the rating to mature, if you think it should be explicit please tell me.

Rimmer had made a Very Important Realisation, and he wasn't going to let everything including the kitchen sink stop him from telling everyone of his Very Important Realisation. It already had delayed him, but it wouldn't stop him. To make this decision he had to look back at his childhood. Easier said than done. He had to consider his interactions with those his age, and his thoughts about celebrities. Easier said than done. And he had to think about Ionian society and politics. Easier said than done.

Basically, it was all easier said than done, but he'd done it. And come to a Very Important Realisation.

He supposed he'd always known. Well, that might have been a bit of an exaggeration.

It all started when he was in Senior C. There was a boy who had transferred to his school, mainly because his dad had to come over to Io for six months for something to do with his work. His dad worked at some Europan space ship thingy, and they were doing some deal with the JMC, something about building something to expand outward and mine around Saturn or something. Rimmer knew this because he listened in to what this really good looking boy was saying. The only thing was he couldn't remember the name of this ship they were going to build. Something about ten-fifteen years to build whatever it was called. It wasn't important.

What was important was that young Rimmer was pretty clear that he really wanted to look like this exotic boy from one of the other moons of Jupiter. From the moment he walked in and introduced himself, his long hair seemed to Rimmer to flow elegantly without trying. And he could have sworn that when he introduced himself he looked at Rimmer and smiled. At him. Not at someone behind him.

'Hello' he announced to Rimmer's Senior C class. 'My name is David Smyth, and I'll be here for the next six months as my dad needs to do something for his work.' And then, still smiling, he took a seat with one of Rimmer's worst enemies. Which is to say anyone else in the class. Of course, this was under the direction of his geography teacher, not by choice. But Rimmer still felt really, really sad. He had admired this boy, wanted to be like him.

He never felt anything near as strong an admiration for women, but of course, that was definitely, totally, admiration. And not a crush. It couldn't be.

Only the Very Important Realisation he made just now said that yes, it was a crush.

His first crush, like all the other actual crushes, were on men.

Including Lister. Definitely Lister. What was it with men called Dave?

His family, along with the whole of the entire moon of Io, would have a fit. Or fifty.

And so he ran, as fast as possible when there's no gravity, which was actually not that fast.

'Lister!' he burst through the doors of the bunk room. Lister wasn't in there, but Cat was, crying over a broken mirror.

'Oh, my mirror, it's boken! How will I see how fabulous I look!'

'Cat, where's Lister?'

'It's a tragedy! A tragedy! The one handsome person in this parsnip of space, forced to not look at himself, but at the ugly idiots surrounding him!'

'Do you mean a parsec, Cat?'

Cat finally took notice of Rimmer, staring at him like he'd grown a second head. Knowing Holly, it may have been entirely possible that he could have accidentally generated a second head for Rimmer. He quickly grabbed the shard of broken mirror from Cat and tried to peer into the sliver of reflective glass to check.

'Hey, that's mine!' Cat snatched it back. 'And no, I dont mean a parsec, that's a cream coloured vegetable!'

'I need to tell Lister something, have you seen him?'

Lister entered the open door, grabing hold of the handle to stop himself from floating across the room.

'Nah, not-a-bud, what do you need to tell him?'

'I need to tell him that... That...'

'Tell me what?'

Rimmer wheeled round. 'Lister, hi.'

'Hi.'

'Hey bud!'

'Tell me what?' repeated Lister, ignoring Cat.

'Uh...' said Rimmer, now it had actually come to telling Lister, he was kind of very extremely nervous. 'I... Like you...? I want to... I've never asked this before...'

Lister nodded, thankfully he understood. 'Have sex with me?'

'Yes, that.'

* * *

 

Lister was standing, naked, in the bunkroom. Rimmer was still fully clothed.

'So... How does this work then?'

'Well,' said Lister. 'Do you want to go on top of or underneath me?'

'There's no gravity. There can't be a top or bottom.'

Lister smirked slightly. 'Well, do you want to stick your penis in me, or do you want-'

'Yes, that one.'

'Really?' Lister was surprised. 'I would have thought it would be the other way.'

'So, do I put a condom on or?'

'Well, I'm not really bothered. No chance of disease, no chance of pregnancy.' Lister paused. 'Hopefully.'

'I think I'll put a condom on.'

Lister nodded. 'I'll get the lube.'

'What?'

'Lube, you've really never done this before, have you?'

'Not exactly... At all...'

A few minutes later they were both staring at each other, both naked, both with obvious erections. 

'Uh... Is there somewhere to stick it?'

'Yeah.'

Rimmer nodded and walked over to Lister. Tentatively he grabbed him and began to move inside him, both of them floating in space.

'Hey, if I put the mirror shards together can we fix it?' asked Cat, both ignored him, too busy having sex to notice. 'Guys?' Cat looked up, seeing the couple floating around, moaning each other's names. Cat stared at them as they seemed to move together. He was slightly confused, having never had sex with anyone but a polymorph (and possibly one human in a backwards universe) Cat wasn't entirely sure what was going on. And then it hit him.

He dropped the mirrors and stood up, hand over his face. 'You two should get a room!' and then, trying to avoid seeing the two men floating about, having sex rather awkwardly, he stormed out of Lister and Rimmer's bunkroom.

He paused outside and looked at Kryten, who was striding towards the room, a smile on his face. 'Don't go in there, buddy.' he informed him. 

Kryten opened the door, looked shocked, then closed it. 'I suppose my announcement can wait, sir.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Last-One-On-Io for the title!


	6. ⊥ɥǝ ƃɹɐʌᴉʇʎ oɟ ʇɥǝ sᴉʇnɐʇᴉou˙

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sǝǝ qǝƃᴉuuᴉuƃ oɟ ɔɥɐdʇǝɹ ɟoɹ uoʇǝs˙˙˙ Mɥɐʇ po ʎon ɯǝɐu ʇɥᴉs ᴉs ʇɥǝ qǝƃᴉuuᴉuƃ¿

Lister was floating around looking at the stars pass by behind a dome of glass, creating a bubble of air alone in the vacuum of space. He was deep in thought. Not about the stars, not about space, not about the fact that he was 3 million lightyears from home, but about family.

He wanted a family.

Yes, he and Rimmer had only just got together, but he wanted a family. With him. He had three sons, but they were all either himself or in another universe with their mother (and, in the case of one, a hologram of himself). He had nearly had one with Kochanski, before they managed to go through a wormhole to her universe, where she, one of his second lot of identical twins (he was beginning to realise that they ran in the family, if only because he was the family) and finally he had himself, the one he sent back in time, as Kochanski and himself-from-her-universe would do. And Rimmer had a son, whom he couldn't even remember meeting due to radiation complications, who had believed that he was an amazing supersoldier.

Neither man had ever had a family, but both had kids. And Lister really wanted a family.

Maybe a daughter, preferably called Stelera Lister-Rimmer (as Rimmer wouldn't want Kristine, but Lister would argue about it, eventually getting Rimmer to settle on the Esperanto for 'constellation like'). He'd never had one, but he thought that he and Rimmer would be good fathers for a daughter. Then they could have a son, Speed Lister-Rimmer, if Lister got his way, after Jim Bexley Speed. Unfortunately, their children would have to be fruitful and multiply should the human race want to continue...

Lister was lonely. He was in his fifties, the last member of the human race, and there was nobody to carry the species on with.

Lister floated, wondering how to solve his predicament. Wondering if Rimmer wanted children. Wondering.

Of course, first they'd need to be married, he could picture a traditional British wedding meeting a traditional South-Ionian wedding, almost. It would help if he knew what a South-Ionian wedding looked like, but he imagined some exchange of wedding rings made from cooled down volcanic rock, a vow about love burning brighter than Mount... Peel, he thought it was called, how their love would be engraved in the obsidian of... Whatever, he knew very little about volcanoes, met with 'I do's and 'Here comes the groom', followed by a pub crawl through parrots. And afterwards they'd find some later lightbee with reproductive capabilities, and Kryten would be shocked to discover Lister still had a uterus, Lister would be upset for a bit, and then they'd have their two children, the first, the girl, by accident, the boy would be planned, though.

He'd had sex with Rimmer once, but he was already so in love that he'd mapped out the next 50 years of his life, up until he would be 103. He wanted to get married, have babies, and then their children have children. And then he wanted to be brought back as a hologram when he died. 

He was in love with Rimmer, they were going to take each other's names. And this served to distract him from the monotony of living in a 5x4x3 mile mining ship which had been stripped of its mining rigs.

Lister missed Earth. He missed the human race. He hated his home being 3 million lightyears from home. 

He floated around the bubble of the observation dome, working out their futures, down to exactly what their children would do. Not the ship's original dome, that had been torn off by a black hole, but a replacement dome, cold-welded to the remains of the lift shaft to the old observation dome, and then painted red to hide its original green colour.

Was this a patched up home, or the single thing preventing him and Cat from being vacuumed to death?

* * *

Kryten was ironing. He was ironing like mad. Within half an hour of stumbling in on Lister doing what humans do best, he had finished all the washing, like mad. All the folding, like mad. And now he was ironing. 

Like mad

Kryten was sad. And worried. What if Lister didn't want to spend as much time with him? It was ironic, a part of him said, that he had supported them before, but the rest of him screamed at that part about how sex on the first date (which hadn't gone well) was a bit much. It was all going too quickly for Kryten. He didn't like it. Not one bit. At this speed, he predicted they would leave for starbug in a week for a honeymoon and never return.

'Hello Kryten.' said a voice from the wall. Kryten jumped and dropped the iron.

'Mr. Holly?' he rubbed his eyes. 'Mr. Holly!'

Holly grinned at him. 'Have you seen the two lovebirds? I just watched them, don't think they noticed, but the-'

Kryten interrupted her. He didn't want to know. 'What are you doing online?'

Holly narrowed her eyes. 'I'm not online, Kryten, there's no Wireless Fireless.'

'No _what_ , sir?'

'Wireless Fireless. It's the thing you connect to. Wireless, cause there are no wires. Fireless, cause there are no fires.'

'I don't think that's what it means, sir'

'Are you saying it's wired and fired?'

'I'm saying it's "Fidelity", sir.'

Holly chuckled. 'Fidelity. Don't make up words to sound smart.'

Kryten ignored him, even though part of him wanted to explain the meaning of Fidelity. Luckily Holly changed the subject. 

'I got them together, you know.'

'I'm sorry, sir.'

'Me, I'm a matchmaker.'

Kryten was confused. 'You mean, they had sex on the first date because of you?'

'Yeah, I guess.' 

Kryten sighed. 'So is that what you're doing... turned on?'

Holly looked shocked. 'Look, seeing two people having sex does not turn me on, It does, however, make me eat computer popcorn whilst they-'

Again, Kryten interrupted. He didn't want to know what he'd already been told.

'Sir, what are you doing on?'

'Eh, not much at the minute, trying to fix a stupid gravity on button. It's nothing.'

'Do you want help, sir?'

'Nah... Yeah... Have you got anything better to do?'

'Well, I was going to announce that I'd found a solution to our gravity problem.'

'What is it?'

'Reverse the gravity off buttons signal and press it.'

'Huh...' Holly disappeared and the gravity returned. Cat yelped as the mirror floating in front of him fell suddenly, shattering into a million new pieces. And again as he fell with it. Kryten prepared himself and was completely calm as he fell, along with the iron, ironing board, and Lister's holey underpants. Rimmer screamed as he fell, the table he held onto did nothing to prevent his fall, as it fell too. 

And Lister didn't realise anything was wrong until he smashed into the glass at the top of the observation dome. It held, and Lister looked down, realising there was no way back to the rest of the ship.

Not only had reversing the current turned the gravity on with the off button, but now everything, and everyone was on the ceiling. So far, the crew hadn't been having any luck with technology...

One could say they'd been having a lot of bad luck.

Sɯǝƃ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I,ɯ uoʇ ʇoo ɥɐddʎ ʍᴉʇɥ ʇɥǝ ndsᴉpǝ poʍu ƃ' ᴉʇ looʞs lᴉʞǝ ʇɥǝ Ɔʎɹᴉllᴉɔ lǝʇʇǝɹ B˙˙˙ Mɥɐʇ po ʎon ɯǝɐu ʇɥᴉs ᴉs ndsᴉpǝ poʍu¿


	7. Lister in Distress

Lister stared down at the stars below him. His nose was pressed against the glass of the observation dome and was beginning to go numb. He was tired, he'd tried to escape the top of the dome, but ended up sliding back down every time. He was lonely, confused and scared. 'Help!' he yelled up at the ship. 'I'm stuck! Heeeeeeeeeeeelp!'

Rimmer was lying under a table several floors below/above the observation dome. He was shocked, and wondering just what had happened, and why they were on the ceiling.

'Hello non buddy'

'Cat?'

'Is it me, or are we on the ceiling?'

Rimmer looked around. 'Yeah.' He pushed the table away from him and it crashed into Lister's bunk, sticking out at a jaunty angle. Lister. Where was Lister? He quickly scanned the room, looking for any clues as to the location of the last human being in the universe. Nothing. He walked over to the bathroom door, realised that he couldn't quite step over the odd pipe-like things and something he thought might be a light _and_ the bit of wall at the top of the door, and motioned to Cat to come over.

'What you waving at?'

'You.'

'Oh! Hi, bud!' Cat waved at him. 'How are you?'

Rimmer glared at him. 'Get over here and give me a leg up.'

'Sure!' Cat grinned. 'If you tell me what you and Lister were doing, and what its purpose was.'

Rimmer sighed. 'Uh... Its purpose is that we like each other, and it was... Uh...'

Cat shrugged. 'And you wanted to have sex with a little fat man in his fifties, as supposed to a rather fine, tall, skinny gentleman in his... How old am I?'

'Uh... Cat...'

'I mean, what is his appeal?'

'He looks good. And'

'I look good. Plus my anatomy is better suited to reassuring reproductive success than a human is.'

'Are you jealous? Do you have penis envy?'

'No, but I want you to say that you feel that way about me, too.'

'Will you help me then?'

'Of course.'

'Cat, I want to smeg you.'

'Ew, man, are you serious? You could never get a guy like me. You're gross!'

'Can you save your fickleness until after I check the bathroom?'

'Well, I hope you can get in there by yourself, because I sure on half ain't helping you.'

'Fine!' he said, picking up the table from its position in Lister's bed. 'I can replace you with the table and there wouldn't be any difference!'

He placed the table propped up against the wall and ran at it. The table held, and he crashed into the bathroom and landed awkwardly, one foot in the toilet. He swore loudly, Lister wasn't in here, nor was Kryten, or anything which might allow him to get back into the bunk room, grab the table, and leave into the corridor. He was trapped.

Cat, however, had come to the conclusion that just because he didn't like Rimmer, didn't mean that Rimmer couldn't like him. In fact, he was so pleased now to have been complimented that he lept over the pipes into the bathroom. 'It's OK, bud! You're still too ugly for me, but I don't mind shaking your hand.' Cat extended a hand to shake Rimmer's, and tentatively he accepted it.

Cat then picked him up as if he weighed nothing, which may have been because he weighed practically nothing, and jumped back over the wall into the bedroom, where he unceremoniously dropped Rimmer on the floor/ceiling.

* * *

Holly checked the ships psi-scan. 'There's a biological and non biological lifeform in some quarters near the top of the ship.' 

Kryten nodded. He had used some magnetic boots to grip onto the floor of the ship, which was both disorientating and reorientating. 'That will be messers Lister and Rimmer, probably still doing the dance with no underpants.' 

Holly checked it again. 'Oh, now they're in the corridor, heading towards the, no, heading towards the, nope, heading towards a computer terminal.'

'They probably want to know why they're on the ceiling, sir.'

Rimmer started to head towards a computer terminal to see where Lister was, yet Cat started to head over to a storage cupboard. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, yet in an environment where only one person, Cat, could jump high enough to get over the pipes embedded in the ceiling neat the doors and the bit of wall, this could be a problem.

'Cat, what are you doing?'

'Getting some sticky stuff to fix my mirror.'

'Can't it wait?'

'Nope, if you want my help, then you need to let me fix the mirror.' he said, jumping into a cupboard. A few seconds later he was heard rummaging through whatever rubbish was stored there

Rimmer sighed and waited rather impatiently for Cat to return. Eventually, after what seemed like 100 years but was nearer to 10 minutes, Cat returned with some superglue, glass bond, hot melt, mini putt and Fixodent. Rimmer raised an eyebrow in confusion, and Cat flashed him a grin and held out one of the tubes. 'What does this say?'

'It says "Helps dentures act like real teeth." '

'Do you think that means it would help a broken mirror act like a fixed mirror?'

'I would stick to the glass bond, or superglue.'

'Hmm... Those names don't inspire confidence...' Cat squeezed the Fixodent onto the mirror. 'But this, this "Helpsdenturesactlikerealteeth" will help a broken mirror act like a fixed mirror.'

Rimmer rolled his eyes. 'Idiot.' he started to head over to the computer terminal, muttering about how superglue was, in fact, quite a confidence inspiring name, and then started climbing over some junk which was covering the ceiling, having fallen upward with the gravity reversal. He started to move it to make a vaguely hill-shaped junk pile, allowing him to climb up to use the computer terminal. He logged in and turned the screen so it was rotated 180 degrees. Now that it was the right way up, he used it to check for biosigns and noticed a non-organic one heading in his direction, and an organic one in the observation dome. 

'Observation dome. Also Kryten's coming.'

'Good, maybe he'll help me.' said Cat. 'This isn't sticking the mirror together. I think it's out of date.'

'Cat, we're on a 3 million-year-old mining ship which belongs to a species which, for the best part of 3 million years, has had a population of one. Everything is either out of date or was in stasis.' 

'What, my trout a la creme?'

'Stasis.'

'Toothpaste?'

'Out of date.'

'Hairbrushes?'

'Correction, everything is either out of date, something which doesn't go off or was in stasis.'

Rimmer headed off towards one of the many lifts, moving the pile of junk over so he could press the 'call lift' button. He then stepped into the lift and fell to the top. 'Observation dome please' he said, whilst lying face down. The lift moved down at speed and opened its doors into the observation dome. 

Rimmer didn't know exactly what to do, so grabbed the emergency pull from the floor and pulled it towards the doors, where he threw it over. After a couple of seconds, the lift started yelling. 

'Emergency! Emergency! An elderly person has fallen over in the lift! Emergency! Emergency! An-'

Rimmer kicked the lift. 

'Ooow! Emergency! Emergency! I've been kicked! Emergency! -'

Lister's peace and quiet at the bottom of the observation dome was disrupted by the sudden wailing of the lift as it yelled something about an elderly person falling over, something about being kicked, and then returned to yelling about an elderly person falling over. He turned over from his stargazing and saw an emergency cord dangling out of the lift. Above it, Rimmer was staring down at him, grinning slightly.

'Need help, Listy?'

'Uh, yeah.'

'Hold on.' Rimmer clambered out of the lift and slid down the cord, dangling halfway between Lister and the glass dome as he swang slightly from the triangle pull thing. 'Oh.'

'Yeah.'

'It's not long enough.'

'Yeah.'

Rimmer thought for a minute or two. 'Throw me your trousers.'

'Sorry?'

'Your trousers, I'm going to tie one leg to the rope and then hopefully you'll be able to grab onto my leg, and then I can climb up.'

Lister took off his trousers and threw them up. Rimmer grabbed them, tied the left leg to the triangle pull and slid down to the bottom of the right leg. Lister then grabbed his leg and slowly he climbed back up. 

Meanwhile, as was the case whenever anything happened in a lift, all the other lifts received a message asking everyone to report to the lift as there was an emergency. Kryten being Kryten had run over to that lift, ignoring Cat's location, and pressed the 'call lift' button. 

The lift didn't move, just gave him an 'error, cannot close doors' message. 

Rimmer climbed back into the lift, pulling the rope and trousers back in with him, and Lister gratefully put his trousers back on. Then the lift suddenly rocketed upwards. Lister loft his balance slightly, steadying himself against the walls.

'You saved me.'

'I did.'

The lift opened to show Kryten madly pressing the 'call lift' button. 

'Kryten?'

'Sirs!'


	8. Unlucky for some

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what you're thinking. 'Wait, isn't this late Friday night where you are? Don't you update during Saturday/Sunday/Monday?' well, yes, I normally do, and yes, it is. Enjoy! Maybe I'll get another chapter out sooner than normal. Who knows. I do have a bit more time ATM.

If there was one thing good about wearing magnetic boots when gravity was pulling you up, it was that you could walk on the floor. Everything else, such as trying to eat or drink, or even that you are being pulled upwards, is not very good at all, and can even be uncomfortable.

Lister held a coffee cup upside down. He lowered it slowly and took a sip from it, which meant tipping it in the wrong direction, so that it hit the roof of his mouth. 'So.'

'What?'

'About earlier.'

'No, we're not doing that again, not yet, we have other problems.'

'What the gravity?'

'That's one of them.' Rimmer leant against the window, holding a mug of tea. Unlike Lister, his mug was the right way up. The mug, and the tea, was also holographic. Whilst Lister had to drink everything upside down and wear stupid magnetic boots, Rimmer just had to be reprogrammed.

'Oh, come on, you just need something to take your mind off of it. Come on.' Lister placed the cup down underneath the now-superglued-to-the-floor table. 'Why don't we dance?'

'Uh, well, firstly, I don't dance.'

'It's romantic. Space is romantic.' Lister pointed out the window. 'And that purple gas giant with the giant rings is reminding me of Saturn.'

'So you want to dance on the floor, which is acting as the ceiling, because it's romantic, and a gas giant which is the literal opposite colour of Saturn is reminding you of Saturn, and you think that's romantic?'

'Yeah.'

Rimmer set his mug of tea down on top of the table. 'How do you want to do this?'

Lister held his arms out. 'Uh... we hold onto each other?'

'Do you want to lead?'

'Do you?'

'But do you?'

'Do you?'

'But do you?'

'Do you want to lead?'

'Uh...'

'I'll lead.'

Lister placed his hands on Rimmer's waist and shoulder. They then rocked slightly. 

'This is awkward.'

'Rimmer, it's romantic!'

'No, it's awkward.'

'Oh, hello dudes' Holly interjected, causing Rimmer and Lister to jump apart from each other. 'Oh, sorry, not a good time. I can come back later.'

'What do you want?'

'I found a green sticky thing.'

'Oh, what is it?'

'Aside from being green, it's sticky.'

'Where is it.'

'In the ship.'

'Where in the ship?'

'Uh, you know how most of me is in the computer room, which is where it gets its name?'

'Yeah.'

'But a lot of me is spread out through the ship?'

'We know.'

'It's in the main bit of me in the computer room.'

'It's _in_ you?'

Holly nodded, their head bobbing up and down. 'It's in me. It's green, sticky, and burning.'

'Burning?'

'I'm a smegging quantum computer with an IQ of 6000, do you know how much power I need to run? Do you know how many volts and amps and coulombs and whatever the other thing is go through me every second?'

'Less than Rimmer?'

'Uh... I... Yeah, you're right, I think. I don't know. But it's burning. This green, sticky liquid is burning.'

'You mean evaporating?'

'Whatever. It's becoming a gas. In me. Do you know what happens when I get a gas in me?'

'Nothing?'

'I... Yeah, nothing, except, it could travel to other bits of the ship, like the gravity on button.'

'What about the holographic projection room?'

'Is that what's been causing the gravity problem?' Lister ignored Rimmer,

'Probably. Come down to the engine room to check it out.'

'Will it reach the holographic projection room?'

* * *

The side panel in one of the many computer banks was smoking, a green haze oozing out of it.

'Let me take a look' said Lister. He moved over to the computer bank and opened the panel. More smoke came out and, in a stroke of bad luck, Lister dropped the screwdriver on his foot, bent down to pick it up, banged his head on the computer bank and fell over.

'Lets get you out of there, I'll get Kryten to analyse whatever that is.' Rimmer picked Lister up and carried him out of the room. He then sat him down. Lister jumped up.

'I'm fine!' he stormed off. 'You didn't need to-' Lister tripped and fell.

'Calling Kryten' said Holly. 'Also it's cute how much you care- oh, Kryten's here.' 

Kryten appeared onscreen

'What's the matter sir?'

'I need you to smell something.'

'On my way sir, Holly said you're outside the computer room.'

'Yes.'

Kryten stepped around the corner. 'Hello sir!'

'Kryten?'

'Yup, what do you need me to smell?' Kryten stepped over Lister, who was face down on the floor complaining about being hurt. He then froze, picked Lister up, opened a fridge compartment in his chest, and gave him an ice pack. 

'Hold this to where it hurts.'

'An ice pack, Krytes, I'm not five!'

'Sir, you'll like it, it's in the shape of a Mr man called Mr Bump.'

'That's why I'm complaining, Kryten.'

'CS Lewis once said that "When he was ten, he used to read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if he had been found doing so. when he was fifty he read them openly. When he became a man he put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." I think that applies to an ice pack in the chape of a character from a children's book series from 200 ish years before you grew up.'

'I don't need it.'

'Yes you do sir.'

'Yes, I do Kryten.'

Kryten grinned and headed over to the computer room, where he sniffed the green smoke. 

'Oh dear.'

'What?'

'Do you want the good news or the bad news.'

'Good.'

'I know what it is.'

'What's the bad?'

'Someone threw a bad luck virus into the computer.'

'I have a name!' said Holly. 'And who was it?'

'Not me.'

'Nor me, sir, I find bad luck viruses are generally bad.'

'Nor me' said Lister, who was standing in the doorway, contorting himself into a position where his knee was pressing the ice pack into his head.

Holly disappeared from the screen. Cat's face appeared.

'Oh, hey buds, you wanted me?' Everyone glared at him. 'What's the monkey doing? Monkeying around?' Everyone still glared at him. 'What's going on?'

'Bad luck virus.'

'Oh... I thought that I put it in the trash. The trash was opposite the flooded bathroom, right? You know, the one which smelt of damp and had that machine in it?'

'You mean the computer. The computer in the computer room. The computer in the computer room where Holly is? Holly, the computer in the computer room where Holly is.'


	9. A date, with less confusion

Kryten had cleaned up the bad luck virus, and the gravity had been turned on. Glad to be back on the floor, without magnetic boots, Lister decided that it was time for something romantic. Extremely romantic.

'Hey, Kryten, can I ask you for a favour?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Can you reheat the steak from earlier.'

'Of course, sir. Shall I also get Holly to project a new, warm, holographic steak?'

'Can't you put it back in the oven with my steak?'

Kryten stared at Lister in confusion. His audio processing unit must be glitchy, there was no way Lister had asked him to put a holographic steak in an oven. Or thought that you reheated food in an oven. He replayed the exchange. 

'Can't you put it back in the oven with my steak?'

'Can't you put it back in the oven with my steak?'

'Can't you put it back in the oven with my steak?'

Nope, he heard Lister correctly. Kryten smiled. 'Of course, I can put them both in the oven.' 

Lister hugged him. 'Thanks, Krytes, you're the best wingman.' Lister withdrew from the hug and got in a lift to go to the bunkroom.

'Well, I don't know about that...' Kryten said, before taking the lift to Parrots bar., where he was greeted by two smashed plates, a candle pinning a half-eaten steak to the ceiling and a holographic steak, with a few bites taken out of it, floating a few inches above the table. 

'Oh dear.' he said. 'I best clean this mess up.'

Lister opened the bunkroom door to find Cat curled on his bed and Holly yelling at him. He also found a broken mug and spilt tea on the floor, with a coaster floating in the mess. 

'Holly, where's Rimmer?'

'You! You are a stupid... Feline... Stupid person!'

'Well how was I to know that that was the computer room? It smelt like trash!'

'Holly, where's Rimmer?'

'Read the sign! The sign which says "Computer room"! You... Non-reading... idiot... person!'

'Holly, where is Rimmer?'

'Oh, so you think I can't read! Well, let me tell you something! I can read! And I read "trash room"!'

'HOLLY!'

Holly stopped arguing, turning to Lister. 'What!'

'Where's Rimmer?'

'Well, how would I know! He's your boyfriend!'

'Because you're the computer, you can view where different people are.'

'Oh yeah... I forgot about that.' Holly thought for a second. 'Bathroom.'

'Bathroom?'

'Yeah. Bathroom.'

'Which bathroom?'

'The one attached to this room.'

'Wouldn't you have seen him enter?'

'Why?'

'Because you're in here?'

'Maybe.'

'Can you take this outside and get Rimmer, I have a dinner plan.'

'Sure.' Holly disappeared from the screen, then reappeared. 'Corridor. Now.' he disappeared again.

* * *

The table was empty. This was mostly because Kryten was still cleaning Parrots bar. It would have helped if he could reach the ceiling more easily with his groinal attachment, but as it was he had to use magnetic boots to get onto the ceiling and stay there. 

Lister fiddled with the VCR. 'Even if we can't watch a movie, we can watch a film.'

'What film?'

'Uh...' Lister pulled out a load of tapes of romantic movies. ' _"Love Simon" "Titanic" "Love actually" "When Harry met Sally" "Casablanca" "Notting Hill" "Dirty Dancing" "Sleepless in Seattle" "Say Anything" "It Happened One Night"_ Take your pick'

'Take your pick sounds... interesting. And wasn't Notting Hill a carnival?'

'No, I was asking you to take your pick. And yeah, it was.'

'Titanic, then.'

'Titanic?' 

'Titanic.'

Lister put the tape in the VCR and sat down next to Rimmer.

'Why Titanic?'

'Why not?'

'The ship sinks.'

'I'm aware. April 1912, hits an iceberg and sinks. Ironically it was thought to be unsinkable.'

'So you know it's sad?'

'If you start to cry I'm sure that I can do something to cheer you up.'

The film continued. Lister started to chew his hair. In fact, he chewed his hair whenever anything slightly romantic or sad happened. 

Halfway through the film they were still without any food when Rimmer grabbed Lister. 

'What are you doing?'

'You know what they've done which we haven't?'

'Died on a ship?'

'Excuse you, but I have died on a ship. Multiple times. No. What have they done, which we haven't?'

'Lived in 1912?'

'I would have thought that, as you're a romantic idiot you would have noticed.' Rimmer leant in and kissed Lister.

It wasn't the best kiss Lister had ever received, it was rather rushed, and he still had his hair in his mouth. There was also no tongue, and, due to the hair situation, Rimmer pulled back from the kiss quite quickly.

Kryten happened to walk in as this was happening, with a newly cooked steak and a holographic steak. 'Sirs, your steaks.'

'It's not the steak from earlier, is it?'

'No, sir, though there is still a steak floating above the table.' Kryten looked at the video screen. 'Oh, Titanic...' Kryten started to cry as his programming rebelled against him standing by as people died. 'All those humans, dying at sea!' he squeaked, his voice unit beginning to freeze as his sadness chip took up more and more RAM. 'I don't know why this is considered romantic!'


	10. Into the moon

Some time had passed uneventfully on the ship. And so Lister was bored. Bored with life. Bored with everything. The only thing which wasn't boring was that he was now, for the first time since... he couldn't actually remember how long ago Kochanski had left for her universe, in a relationship.

And as his boyfriend was busy, doing what he wasn't sure, he was left alone in the bunkroom. Bored with life.

'Hey, Holly.'

'Huh.' Holly appeared on screen, her hair in a mess. 'I'm washing my hair!'

'You're a computer.'

'Yes, but I need to change my hairstyle, which includes washing it. Pick up that water bottle, will you?'

Lister picked it up and held it like Kryten holding one of his socks. 'Alright.'

'Now throw the water in it at my screen.'

Lister complied. The screen got wet. Holly stared at him. 

'I didn't think this through.' she said. 'Can you wipe my screen, it's obscuring my vision.'

Lister complied. He didn't know what he was doing with his life. 'Alright.'

Holly grinned, then she seemed to glitch off the screen, reappearing with her hair neat. 'Done, what did you want me for.'

'I'm bored.'

'Really? I wouldn't have thought that would be possible with the amount of loud, obnoxious, yet nice to watch sex you've been having.'

Lister gaped at Holly. 'You... Watch... You... Me... Sex?'

'I've watched through every recorded video of people having sex that I can find. It's nice to get new content.'

Lister's mouth dropped further. 'I... You... Porn?'

'Yeah, I watch porn.' said Holly. 'Why? I'm over 3 million, I'm middle aged, I can watch porn.'

'You're a computer!'

'And? I have urges... Of course, it's a bit harder to deal with them... Surely you noticed the power surges?'

'I... That was you?'

'Well... Sometimes it was Rimmer. Once it was Kryten. He was recharging and looking through an old copy of Which? magazine...'

Lister held up a hand to stop Holly from continuing. 'Please. Stop.'

Holly laughed at his discomfort. She didn't know why she found it funny to annoy the crew. She also was too busy messing with Lister's head to pay attention to the front of the ship. 

Which she really should have done, as the ship was approaching a small moon head on. Was, being the operative word.

The ship crashed into a small moon. Head on. As it jolted to a stop Lister was thrown unceremoniously across the bunk room, Cat, who was being very helpful and sorting through his wardrobe so as to avoid accidentally wearing the wrong clothes (which would certainly horrify the crew... Or just himself), was thrown out of the wardrobe holding a flamingo pink bedazzled suit. He was followed by many other suits and ended up at the bottom of a suit heap. Kryten, meanwhile, found himself and the washing, which he was finding he had to do much more of recently, being thrown away from the washing machine. Rimmer, meanwhile, had a kitchen sink, along with the kitchen utensils, fly at, and, in the case of the sink, through him. He sighed. 

'Oh dear' said Holly. 'We seem to have rear-ended a moon.'

'What, a full moon?'

'I don't know about that, not sure what phase it's in on the planet.'

* * *

The moon was your average small moon, slightly larger, or maybe slightly smaller, than Mimas. Lister wasn't entirely sure as he'd tried to forget everything about Mimas, which was understandable.

But, unlike most moons, sticking out of one side of it was a giant red ramscope. Attached to this ramscope was a giant red mining ship. Inside this giant red mining ship were five people. Four of whom were annoyed with the fifth one. 

'Holly, lets face it. You're space crazy. You're past your best. You claim to have an IQ of 6000 but you can't even keep an eye on two things at once. As the Esperantinos say-'

'Esperantists, sir.'

' "Vu estal ser viuj listej kriroj." '

'Sir... "Be it real to be some licky cries?" '

Rimmer glared at Kryten. 'No, "You are on your last legs." '

'That's "Va estas sur viaj lastaj kruroj", but your Esperanto is improving, sir.' 

Rimmer glared at Kryten some more. 'Well, then. "Vere estas sennombraj krioj", Holly.'

Holly looked confused. 'Where are the innumerable shouts?'

'Oh great, now a senile computer with an IQ of 6 knows Esperanto better than me.'

'Nothing to be ashamed of, sir. Often a lacking knowledge in languages leads to a plentiful knowledge in mathematics and science... Normally, sir.'

Rimmer glared at Kryten again. Lister stepped between the two. 

'I say... I say we go to this moon and get it out of the ramscope.'

'How?'

'Well.' Lister held up his left hand. 'This is the ramscope.' he held up his right hand. 'This is the moon.' he made a 'boom' sound and moved his right hand away. 'Explosion.'

Cat stared at him. 'I lost you at "Well." but gained you at "Explosion." Lets do this.'

'Sir, I urge you to reconsider, this could destroy the ship! Or the ramscope at least.'

'Well, what do we need the ramscope for?'

'Many things. Fuel, direction, there's even an airlock.'

'So...'

'I have another, more sensible idea.' said Rimmer. 'And I think it's a good one.'

'I don't.'

'You haven't heard it yet, Cat. My suggestion is, as this is a mining ship, we use the equipment, the mining equipment. To mine the moon.'

'An excellent suggestion sir, with only two minor drawbacks.'

'Oh no, not this again.' Rimmer sat down and sighed. 

'First, the mining equipment is on the bottom of the ship, not the front. Second, the moon is too big to fit in the mining equipment, which is made to mine asteroids.' Kryten grinned. 

Holly stared at the crew. 'Why don't we just reverse thrusters?' she asked.

Everyone stared at Holly. 'Oh.'

Rimmer jumped to his feet. 'Kryten, I have an even better idea, why don't you reverse thrusters.'

Kryten replayed the last few seconds, to make sure that it was definitely Holly and not Rimmer who said that. 'That's exactly what Mr Holly said, sir.'


	11. De-mooning

The thrusters rotated slowly. '45°' announced Holly, as the ship groaned and shifted further into the moon.

'I don't see why we can't explode the moon, and then if there are any moon bits in our way, mine them.'

'Sir, if we do that, the explosion might damage our ramscoop, which is why reversing is the best option

'Holly, are the engines still running?'

'This is a city-sized mining ship which was never meant to stop, the closest it gets to stopping is in orbit.'

'Except, Holly, we've sort of stopped now.'

'Alright, Arnold, the closest it gets to stopping is when there's a small moon blocking the way.'

'And that time when the engines were turned off.'

'90°' said Holly, and the ship stopped moving, but continued groaning,

'I feel like my insides are vibrating!' Cat yelled. 'Any more of this and I'm going to puke and you'll have to pay the dry cleaning bills!'

'90 plus 45°' said Holly when they reached 135°, a high pitched shreik started as the ship began to rotate slightly.

'I don't think this should be happening.' Lister said. 'But I feel like I'm on one of those treadmills which can raise up and down.'

'You've been on a treadmill? You?' Cat looked incredulous.

'180°!' Holly yelled, and the ship ground against the rock of the moon, metal shrieking against rock. Cat stuck his fingers in his ears, Lister covered his ears and then Rimmer also covered Lister's ears. Kryten turned down his hearing sensitivity and then covered Rimmer's ears.

'Kryten! Get off!' yelled Rimmer, and Holly dissappeared, reapearing with two bits of tissue in their ears.

'You want Kryten to mop?' said Holly.

'Sir, it's loud.' said Kryten, followed by 'Yes sir!' as he started to hop.

'Cloud? Where?' asked Holly.

'Holly shut up!' yelled Rimmer and Lister, followed by 'Kryten, stop hopping!'

'You want a brolly to mutt up? What does that mean?'

Cat collapsed onto the floor. 'This noise is too noisy!' he complained.

'Sirs, how do you expect me to mop whilst I'm carrying out Holly's orders to hop!'

The shriek stopped and the ship was freed from the moon. Rimmer took his hands away from Lister's ears, and Lister did the same, before collapsing on the floor beside Cat.

'Kryten you can turn your hearing up now, Holly you can take those tissues out of your ears.'

'I can earn my cheering, sir?'

'What issues in my years?'

Lister stood up and pointed to his ears. 'The! Noise! Has! Stopped!' he said.

'The boys have dropped?' Holly shook their head. 'What boys? Dropped what?'

Kryten turned his hearing back up. 'It appears I may have made a fool of myself.' he admitted. 'If so, I do apologise.'

'You made a pool? A swimming pool?'

Lister hurriedly wrote 'Sound stopped, take off tissue.' on a piece of paper and held it to Holly's screen.

'Oooh.' Holly nodded and then disappeared, reappearing without the tissue.

Lister sighed. 'Right, so unless anyone else has any news to give us-'

'Actually, sir, I do.' Kryten looked embarrased. 'And honestly I think my head will literally explode if I don't tell you.'

'Then tell me!'

'Oh, sir, it's disgusting. Absolutely disgusting!'

'What is it?' Lister questioned.

'Well, you know when you and Mr. Rimmer were... mingling your inny and outy bits?' Kryten said, certain that if he could blush he'd be going as red as both the human and hologram standing in front of him.

Cat looked confused. 'Cleanign out their bellybuttons?'

'You were there, Cat! He wasn't meaning that he must have-'

'That was you cleaning out your bellybuttons? I thought you were having sex!'

By now Lister could have won second place in a tomato lookalike competition, The only reason it wouldn't have been first place was because Rimmer had switched to softlight mode so he could back into the wall, meaning that not only had he turned red, but so had his clothes.

Kryten nodded. 'Oh, sir! Holly told me all about what they saw.'

'What did they see?'

'Everything.'

'Everything!'

'Hey, in my defence, dudes, I'm a computer... With urges.'

'You watched us going at it for... For porn?'

Cat looked even more confused. 'You can make porn of bellybutton cleaning?'

Lister clamped his hand over Cat's face. 'Shut. The smeg. Up. About bellybuttons.'

'And then you told Kryten?' Rimmer said from halfway through the wall.

'Yup.' Holly nodded. 'He thought it was disgusting.'

'Because it is!'

'But you don't understand, when you were-' Holly was interrupted as Cat bit Lister, hissed, and then ran away.

Cat didn't stop running, except he did. Eventually. But he didn't stop until he reached the stairs, where he then slid down the railings in style. He then started running again, but this time he only ran around the corner so he could slide down the railings again, also in style. He repeated this several times, until he reached one specific, long abandoned, floor.

He then ran straight into a bunkroom, grabbed Lister's old pillow, and hugged it close to him.

'Oh my Cloister. He's smegging goalpoast head.'

* * *

'Delete it.'

'Sorry?'

'Delete the memory, and, in future, do not watch anything like it again.'

'Dave, you have to delete my memory, I can't do it internally.'

Lister sighed, although he loaded up Holly's memory banks and deleted all files which contained any of 'Sex' 'Dave' and 'Arnold'. He then turned to Kryten. 'You know what I'm going to ask Kryten.'

'What, sir?'

'Delete the memory of Holly telling you about me and Rimmer.'

'You and Rimmer what?'

'Having... uh...' Lister broke off.

'Sex?'

'Yeah.'

Kryten squeaked. 'You had sex with-'

'Okay! Okay! Don't get your nipple nuts in a twist!'

Meanwhile, Cat had managed to build himself a nest out of Lister's old sheets, as well as one of Rimmer's old uniforms. He sniffed them. Lister's gave him a sentence about a really bad estate agent in a public toilet, whilst Rimmer's uniform told him... Nothing.

Rimmer, meanwhile, was searching for Cat. He had located the floor, and the rough area within the floor, yet couldn't seem to find Cat anywhere, even though he had found a strange pile of sheets and clothing and something which looked a bit like a humanoid figure. Rimmer marched past the original bunkroom he had shared with Lister. He then paused, realising that he had just passed a strange pile of sheets and clothing and something which looked a bit like a humanoid figure. And then he walked back down the corridor.

'Cat?'

'Rimmer?'

Rimmer blinked in surprise at being reffered to by his actual name by Cat. 'Are you alright Cat?'

'I like how we used to be, man, when you and Lister weren't...' Cat made some odd motion in which he held his hands above his head and wriggled them about, before pointing them downwards and dropping his arms. 'Sticking your tubes down each others throats.'

'What, no, we weren't- No. Not at all.'

'Well what were you doing?'

'Personal private personal stuff in our private personal private sleeping quarters. But not that.'

Cat grinned. 'Alright bud!' he rolled off of Lister's bunk and landed on his feet. 'Glad to see you're back to being friends without the benefits.' he said, before running out of the room. 

'What! No! That's not right either!' Rimmer shouted after the disspearing form of Cat. 'Holly, tell him how sex works!'

Holly appeared on a nearby screen. 'I'm sorry, who are you?'


End file.
